


Getting The Hang Of This

by edenbound



Category: Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1629509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenbound/pseuds/edenbound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard's getting used to this whole sewer thing. More or less. Maybe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Getting The Hang Of This

**Author's Note:**

> Written for corialis

 

 

"What are we actually doing?"

The Marquis doesn't answer for a moment. That has little to do with not wanting to answer, and a lot to do with being rather busy negotiating a pile of something that stinks and is actually still twitching vaguely. Richard is past balking at every little thing, but he still gags a little as he steps over it too.

"That's disgusting," he says, but more out of habit than anything else. He's becoming disturbingly comfortable with random heaps of stinking and occasionally twitching things, and has worked past any curiosity about said heaps fairly swiftly. As far as he's concerned, they can remain a mystery forever for all he cares. In fact, that's probably much better for his health - both mental and physical.

He's getting the hang of London Below, really.

The Marquis might disagree, but who's asking him?

"That's the tenth time you've said that, so far today," he observes, anyway.

"That's the tenth disgusting thing we've passed," Richard says, making a face. "I was asking you what we were actually doing."

"So you were."

"Or where we were going. Either would be good."

"Do you really want to know?"

Richard considers it, for a few moments of squelchy, bubbly not-quite-silence, the soundtrack of the sewers. On balance, he realises, he's probably happier not knowing. He doesn't say that aloud, though. The Marquis hears it anyway.

"I thought so."

"Not that I like surprises," Richard hastens to add. "At least, not down here. Sometimes, in London Above, they could be quite nice. Surprise parties, surprise presents, surprise visits, surprise kisses -"

"I'm sure they could be unpleasant too, at times," the Marquis says, with a sly grin. "Surprise presents you have to pretend to love, surprise visits from your grandma, surprise kisses from an ugly woman -"

"I take your point," Richard says, more hastily than ever. "But have you noticed anything about surprises down here? They're never good ones. Hardly ever, anyway. I mean, it'd be a nice surprise if we were to bump into Door down here, but we won't, not unless she's being chased by, I don't know, a highly evolved piranha that's figured out how to walk on land."

"Not in this part of the sewers," the Marquis said, off-handedly. "But further into the network, I wouldn't be surprised. They couldn't chase you on land last time I was there, but that was quite a while ago."

"See?" Richard says, throwing his hands in the air and then almost falling over something that was neither smelly nor twitching. He stepped away quickly, keeping an eye on it for a hand shooting out to grasp his ankle or something. That wouldn't be new, either. "I can't understand why everyone isn't trying to get back to London Above."

"Too much effort," the Marquis says, shortly, "and some of us feel more at home down here. Some people were even born down here."

"Were you?"

"No," the Marquis says, even more shortly. Most people would stop right there, but Richard isn't most people, a fact that took him disproportionately long to figure out, and therefore a fact that he hasn't forgotten. The Marquis has begun to walk faster, so Richard simply matches his pace. At least then he doesn't have to concentrate on wondering what exactly could make that particularly awful smell.

"Where were you born, then?" he asks, and, on further consideration, "And when?"

The Marquis turns so abruptly that Richard almost walks straight on into the dark without him. He hurriedly quickens his pace more to keep up.

"Shouldn't I be asking?"

The Marquis stops as suddenly as he turned, earlier. Richard stops, too, without quite colliding with him. His instincts and reflexes, he thinks proudly, have improved.

"Look," he says, and he pulls something out of his pocket, throwing it toward Richard.

His reflexes really have improved.

He stares at the plastic troll blankly. "Um. Thank you?"

He doesn't even want to speculate on where the Marquis got this, or how he knew about the whole troll thing.

"Come on," the Marquis says, expressionless in the half-dark, his eyes glinting. "We have places to be."

The plastic troll has a shock of bright purple hair, the kind of purple that is bright even in a dark sewer, and a large nose. The eyes are goggling, stupid, shadowed. As stupid as it is, it makes him think of Jessica, and he wonders what happened to the photograph of her that sat on his desk, surrounded by smug plastic trolls. Slowly, Richard puts the thing in his pocket and follows the Marquis.

He thinks of dry, clean socks, and a neat suit, and arriving somewhere on time with no greater adventure than leaving his briefcase in a taxi or nearly getting run over by a bus. He thinks about Jessica's voice on the phone, warm with affection and exasperation. He thinks of the cool sheets of Jessica's bed and the warm press of Jessica's cheek on his shoulder.

He thinks of the darkness, of the drip that just fell from the ceiling and unerringly found its way down the back of his collar. He thinks of the smells, the sounds, the things he tries not to think about.

He thinks of Door, he thinks of the Marquis, he thinks of friends, and he pushes the regret away.

"I miss London Above, sometimes," he says, softly, into the drip-drip-drip and tap-tap-tap of the sewer-silence. The Marquis doesn't turn, doesn't pause.

"I know."

"Mostly, I try not to think about it," he says, rubbing the pad of his thumb over what must be the troll's nose, scraping a little with his nail. There's a kind of lump in his throat, still, when he thinks of Jessica. "I wouldn't want to leave here - I know what comes of that, but... I don't like being reminded of London Above. It makes me wonder."

There's a short quiet, stretched longer by the darkness, which Richard measures by heartbeats, by steps, by drips of water.

"Exactly," says the Marquis, still looking ahead into the dark.

Richard doesn't know what to say to that. What is there to say?

 


End file.
